


sweet sacrifice

by charizona



Category: Person of Interest (TV)
Genre: Choking, F/F, post-s4, shaw comes back
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-12-31
Updated: 2015-12-31
Packaged: 2018-05-10 14:02:44
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,964
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5588863
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/charizona/pseuds/charizona
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>With Shaw on top of her, Root sinks into the serenity of suffocation.</p>
            </blockquote>





	sweet sacrifice

**Author's Note:**

> I wrote this drunk. I edited this sober. I thought some smut was well-deserved in this fandom.

Shaw used to make the most of minimal touches.

Her fingers, they’d gravitate toward Root like a magnet. Root would sit at Harold’s desk and type away, and Shaw’d be in the chair next to her with her feet up, toes just barely brushing Root’s thigh. Root would notice, but she pretended she didn’t. They lived this way for a while.

With Shaw gone, the most noticeable in her absence is the quiet way she occupied space. Without her, the station feels empty, even when Reese plays fetch with Bear on the tracks, or when Finch scolds him for throwing the ball too far. The station is hardly ever empty, but it never feels full. It did, at one point, when Shaw worked out in the corner, when she ate takeout with immeasurable gusto, or when she slept on the cot in the closet. Shaw electrified the space, and every time Root moved, static rattled through her system.

Shaw comes back, eventually. Came because she chose to stumble into the station like she’d never left, and back because Root felt her absence like a gunshot wound. 

Shaw sits in the middle of them, letting Reese check almost every inch of her skin, and when they all decide she’s not fitted with some kind of tracking device that would lead Samaritan right where she goes, Reese claps Shaw on the back.

“Welcome home.”

Root keeps to the sides. She lets the world revolve around Shaw, mostly because Bear isn’t leaving Shaw’s side anytime soon.

Harold has an apartment, Reese has the one he never mentions, the one with Zoe waiting for him. When Root had the Machine, she moved around too much to settle down. Currently in pieces covering the floor of the subway car, the Machine was out of commission.

When everyone is gone, when it’s just Shaw and Root, Shaw stares at the pieces curiously. “Are you working on this?”

Root hovers near the door and holds the door frame. She nods her head. Shaw doesn’t see it. “Yes.” When she speaks, her voice feels raw, unused.

Shaw somehow looks better than she did before. Apparently, bullets littered in her chest had done her nothing but good. Root notices even thicker muscles across her back. She paid attention before, to Shaw’s form, but now it was distracting.

“You look better.” Than the time she watched Shaw bleed out on the floor of the stock exchange. Better than that.

Shaw looks up at her. “You, too.”

The compliment sounds fake. Fake because Shaw’s never really complimented her before. Not without a snarky comment preceding or short thereafter.

Shaw pokes part of the Machine with her toe, wincing when the pieces fall apart. She glances at Root. “Sorry.”

“It’s okay. I was rebuilding that part anyway.”

When Shaw crosses the room and kisses her, after winning some internal debate within her consciousness, when Shaw holds her face in her hands - well, Root notices that her hands aren’t calloused.

It’s their second kiss. Their first was a disaster.

The second, it’s nice. Shaw’s hands aren’t calloused, her lips taste like something Root recognizes but can’t name, and she doesn’t stick her tongue into Root’s mouth until Root presses into her, opening her lips.

They stumble into the desk. Pieces of the Machine fall to the floor. At least She’s here in spirit.

Shaw feels natural, squeezed between Root and the desk, and it feels natural to put her hands on Shaw’s hips and curl her nails into the skin there. Natural. Shaw’s groan pulses through her, from her lips to her cunt, and Root’s hips act accordingly. Natural is the way Root’s hips fight for place, the way her own flesh screams for contact.

“Why didn’t we do this sooner.” Shaw speaks into her mouth, against her teeth.

“Because you’re an asshole.”

Root needs Shaw. Right here, right now. But the thought stabs into her like a nail through the hand, painful and fucking irritating.

Root burns; she’s burning and on fire and Shaw is only making it worse. Shaw, whose hands drift everywhere and nowhere. Shaw, who grabs Root’s upper arms and holds on tight. She holds Root, and Root breathes against her lips.

But, breathing is a little difficult right now. She wants Shaw unclothed, horizontal. Needs Shaw. Fuck, not this again.

“We shouldn’t do this.” Root pulls away. She doesn’t know why, but she does it all the same.

“It’s okay.” Shaw squeezes her arms. “I’m not alive.”

She looks into Shaw’s eyes and sees that she’s right. The fire is gone. The fire that used to glitter in Shaw’s eyes under a cloak of darkness. Shaw might need her as much as Root needs Shaw. 

“Slap me.”

“What?”

“I feel like I’m dreaming. I… need to be slapped or held, and I’d rather you slapped me.” They already tried the holding part.

Shaw doesn’t hesitate. Her hands leaves a real-life burning on Root’s cheek. Root tastes blood.

“You’re not dreaming.” Shaw is a dead woman, a woman defying all odds. She raises her dead-woman’s hand up to Root’s cheek, soothing the fire with her own. She caresses the skin there. “I missed you.”

Out of Shaw’s mouth, the words are completely unexpected. They don’t go down well. Root feels a bit like throwing up.

“I missed… your incessant need to be annoying.” Oh God. “Your hair. Your voice.”

Shaw’s voice rumbles like thunder, thick with arousal. The words are the lightning, a flash of brilliance, and Shaw’s voice is the accompanying boom, rattling Root to the bones.

She must’ve forgot when Root said they shouldn’t do this. Root feels like running. She could run right out of there and forget Shaw ever came back. Except she couldn’t.

Root spent the entire time Shaw was gone looking for her. She’d only just stopped to take a breath. She knew when Shaw was gone she’d have to give her something when she came back, but the only thing that feels real, feels true, is herself. But Root is a shell, hollowed out by sadness and standing on ledges. In her disappearance, Shaw reached in and scooped out everything inside of the Root-shell. There’s nothing left, and Shaw doesn’t understand.

“I’m not alive, but I’m here.” The reminder from Shaw is a bag of bricks. Root falls into Shaw one brick at a time. Her lips, they crash against Shaw’s in a shuddering gasp of pain. Shaw tastes the blood, Root knows it. Her chest, it falls into Shaw’s own with something akin to lust. Root’s fingers find purchase in Shaw’s hair, tangling in the long, long ponytail Root had almost forgotten.

No. Not forgotten. She saw many a ponytail like it on the street, sparking hope in her chest. Shaw senses the change in the mood. She holds Root. Even after all their words, Shaw still doesn’t listen to her.

She never did.

Shaw takes her to bed. Bed is the cot that went cold every night Shaw was gone. Root curled up on the bench with a pile of blankets. Even then, the blankets always smelled like Shaw.

The cot is bare, welcoming them. Shaw shoves Root onto it, looks down at her. Root feels cut open. She reaches for Shaw’s belt loops, tugging her forward. Shaw lands between Root’s legs, and Root works at unbuttoning her jeans. Shaw grabs Root’s hand and shoves it between her legs; Root works through her cotton underwear, relishing the heat.

With Shaw on top of her, Root sinks into the serenity of suffocation. Root hardly manages to twist her fingers past Shaw’s underwear, but she does manage. Fingertips brush pulsing clit, steep into Shaw, and Shaw’s hips grind forward. Her breath is hard on Root’s neck. Root breathes her in, smells the clean scent of aloe, and a different scent, a scent uniquely Shaw. With her other hand, Root pulls Shaw’s hair.

Shaw hisses. She writhes on top of Root, and Root pushes two fingers into her. Shaw rolls her hips, riding Root’s fingers like the best of the jockeys.

“Right there.” Shaw growls it. Root complies.

She curls her fingers, she hits the right spot. Shaw’s thighs are tight on either side of her, and the base of her palm brushes Shaw’s clit. Root floats on cloud nine.

It’s what she always wanted. Shaw at her fingertips. Shaw’s hand palming her breast, and Shaw’s fingers skidding across her nipples.

Root thinks about crying, but she doesn’t. When Shaw comes, when her breathing catches, and her body arches into Root, Root holds her. They’re doing a lot of that tonight. Shaw comes quietly. Root is aware of her own need, and Shaw reads her mind, slipping a hand between them and clawing at Root’s wrist. Her nails dig into Root’s pulse -  _ thump, thump, thump _ .

When Root finally pulls a slick hand up to Shaw’s neck, Shaw gets the message.

She moves, pressing her hips into Root’s, and she sits up, slipping her fingers from Root’s forearms to Root’s neck. Her fingers curl around the muscles there, her thumbs ghosting just the slightest pressure.

She rocks on top of Root. Root’s breathing is the only sound in the room, piquing. With straight arms, with muscles a spider web of veins looped around her forearms, Shaw leans, pushing her weight through her hands. The arousal that flares through Root’s entire being is blinding, but it might just be the lack of air rendering her immobile.

Shaw lets off, then on again, testing her own strength. Root remains conscious; Shaw seems to know her limit.

Kneading the muscles of Root’s neck, Shaw presses a thumb to Root’s pulse, and caresses the low part of her jaw. She digs her nails in just because she can. She readjusts, pushing a thigh between Root’s legs, and Root cries out at the sudden pressure.

Her breath disappears. Leaning down into her, Shaw works the thigh between her legs and the hands wrapped around her throat. Root’s hips leave the bed, searching for more, grinding against Shaw’s thigh. Black edges into her vision.

Shaw lets go. She waits the two seconds it takes for Root to breathe in, breathe out, and then it’s Root’s clit she’s aiming for, pushing a particularly well-timed thigh even harder against her. Hard and fast, she adds more pressure with her fingers, too, digging into Root’s neck the strongest yet. Root’s eyes roll back, she comes against Shaw’s thigh, and Shaw lets go before she passes out.

Already, bruises bloom across alabaster skin. 

Shaw holds Root’s shoulders, balancing herself above her. She searches Root’s face.

Underneath the curtain of Shaw’s hair (when did her hair fall out of the tie?), in their own separate world, Root smiles.

Shaw rolls her eyes, determines her fit for ignoring, and collapses into the space between Root and the wall, breathing hard. “Never knew you’d be such a good fuck.”

“Thanks.”

Shaw’s head rolls to the side. “Sometimes, I can’t tell if you know I’m kidding.”

“You’re not.” Root grins lazily. “And I already knew I was a good fuck.”

Shaw sighs, loud enough for it to be unauthentic, and she reaches over, hand venturing under Root’s shirt. “Maybe again, but with less clothing.”

“Maybe?”

Shaw scowls. The variety of expressions crossing her face in the last minute were giving Root whiplash. “You know, sometimes it feels like I’m still in a cell. Like Martine’s just outside the door, or Lambert’s joking about me in some other room.”

Root’s lips part as she lets out a long breath. Finally, she leans forward to press a sloppy kiss on Shaw’s lips. “You’re here.” She remembers Shaw’s earlier words. “You’re alive.”

Shaw’s eyes flit toward Root’s lips, then back to her eyes. “I know.”


End file.
